Nudge Intervention and Non-response Bias in Landowner Participation

Last registered on December 01, 2023

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Nudge Intervention and Non-response Bias in Landowner Participation

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0012514

Initial registration date

November 17, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

December 01, 2023, 4:51 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Japan

Region

Ehime

Primary Investigator

Name

Yohei Mitani

Affiliation

Kyoto University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2023-11-20

End date

2023-12-27

Keywords

Agriculture, Behavior, Environment & Energy

Additional Keywords

Agri-environmental scheme

JEL code(s)

Q1, Q2, C81, C83, C93

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Private land conservation is critical in generating environmental services for society. Protecting and enhancing environmental services from private land through land use change and adaptation often impose considerable opportunity costs on landowners. Over the last decades, agri-environmental schemes have been widely used as a policy instrument to compensate landowners financially for the costs related to land conservation. However, the performance of such incentive-based schemes relies heavily on landowners’ willingness to participate. An RCT will be conducted by mailing a survey package to 7,299 eligible individuals who own forest land in the Kumakogen municipality in Japan. This RCT addresses two questions: (1) Does a nudge intervention facilitate landowners’ participation in an easement contract? (2) How severe can non-response bias be in nudge interventions through a mailed solicitation?

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Mitani, Yohei. 2023. "Nudge Intervention and Non-response Bias in Landowner Participation." AEA RCT Registry. December 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12514-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

(1) Since an easement contract and its procedure are complicated for landowners, the transaction cost can be high, especially for inattentive landowners such as the elderly. We design a simplified and personalized information booklet. We investigate the impact of the treated booklet (Nudge Treatment: N1) on participation by comparing it with a full information booklet (Nudge Control: N0) prepared and used by the local government.
(2) Mail surveys and mailed solicitations are the most common vehicles used to collect information about landowners and their practices and implement a nudge intervention. Responses and behaviors observed through such a vehicle can suffer from non-response biases. We randomly incentivize eligible landowners to respond to the survey, where we collect their information and elicit their intention to participate in a program. There is no monetary incentive to reply in the control group as business as usual (Incentive Control: I0). There is a 2% chance (one among fifty respondents) to earn 2,000JPY by responding to the survey in the low incentive group (Incentive Low: I1). There is a 10% chance (one among ten respondents) to earn 2,000JPY by responding to the survey in the high incentive group (Incentive High: I2).

Intervention Start Date

2023-11-20

Intervention End Date

2023-12-27

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The landowner's intention to participate in the municipality's easement program: Y=1 if Q4=2; Y=0 otherwise
(1) % Participation among respondents
(2) % Participation among all eligible landowners, including non-respondents

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

The landowner's intention to participate in an easement program (including the municipality program and other programs provided by other parties, such as a local forest association): Y=1 if Q4=2 or Q4=3; Y=0 otherwise

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Treatment Arms
1. Incentive for Participation (Cover letter: CL)
• I0: Control, no incentive
• I1: Low incentive
• I2: High incentive
2. Nudge (Cover letter & Booklet: CL)
• N0: Full information booklet
• N1: Simplified, personalized information booklet
3. Solicitation to further survey (Questionnaire: QU)
• S1: Opt-in No-incentive
• S2: Opt-in With-incentive
• S3: Opt-out No-incentive
• S4: Opt-out With-incentive
There are 24 treatments which are identified by TID.

Experimental Design Details

A. Participants
Eligible participants are all individuals who own forest land in the Kumakogen municipality in Ehime. Appendix (Screening) shows details of the screening process. We will mail a survey package to 6,494 households (which include 7,299 landowners).

B. Block Randomization (stratification)
1. Residence
• R1: Kuma residence
• R2: Ehime, but not in Kuma
• R3: Outside Ehime
2. Forest size
• S0: Less than or equal to 1 ha
• S1: Greater than 1 ha
There are six blocks identified by BID.

C. Randomization Procedure
1. Block: Categorize households into one of six BID groups based on their residence (R) and forest size (FS) statuses.
2. Random assignment: Assign one of 24 TID treatments to each household for each block.
3. HID: Pool all six BID groups. Sort households by (1) S: Solicit; (2) N: Nudge; (3) the number of owners in the household (in ascending order from 1 to 5); (4) I: Incentive; (5) BID: Block. Then, assign a HID (household identification) to each household in ascending order.

D. Survey Package
• Cover letters
• Information booklet
• Survey questionnaire

Randomization Method

A computer does randomization.

Randomization Unit

Randomization is done at the household level.

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

6494 households

Sample size: planned number of observations

7299 landowners

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

(1) Incentive
I0: 2173 households
I1: 2139 households
I2: 2182 households
(2) Nudge
N0: 3245 households
N1: 3249 households
(3) Solicit
S1: 1620 households
S2: 1618 households
S3: 1669 households
S4: 1587 households

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

* Based on the pre-test surveys conducted in two subregions in 2020 and 2021 (Total N = about 300 landowners), we expect the response rate to be about 50% and the participation rate to be about 50% (Pr[Y=1 | respondents]) and 25% (Pr[Y=1 | all landowners]). (1) % Participation among respondents MDE = 0.0491 (alpha = 0.05, power = 0.8, N=3250) (2) % Participation among all eligible landowners, including non-respondents MDE = 0.0307 (alpha = 0.05, power = 0.8, N=6494)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB